About

Students observe fluvial erosion along Hazel Run in Alum Spring Park, with Dr. Joseph Nicholas.

The Geography Department at University of Mary Washington offers a wide range of courses for both majors and non-majors. These are organized into three areas of emphasis:

Community, Development, and Culture: A focus on how people living in specific places and regions experience and affect social, cultural, economic, and environmental processes. Includes courses in planning and urban geography, local development, race and place, human-environment relationships, and regional geographies.

Globalization: A focus on the geographies of globalization and their political, cultural, and economic dimensions. Includes courses in geopolitics, economic and cultural globalization, international development, migration, and regional geographies.

Nature and Society: A focus on the physical and social processes that shape the natural environment and affect human life. Includes courses in landforms, climatology, human-environment relationships and regional geographies.

The requirements for the geography major allow students maximum flexibility and help them begin to specialize within the discipline. After completing a streamlined set of introductory courses, students will consult with their advisors to select topical, regional, and methods/techniques courses in that will build expertise and skills within one of these three areas of emphasis (see courses-by-area-of-emphasis to see what geography courses fall within each of the core areas).

The Department became the first in the College of Arts and Sciences to offer a master’s degree as of fall 2014, when the Master of Science in Geospatial Analysis (MSGA) program began. Program requirements and course descriptions may be found in the graduate catalog, while details about the program can be found on its own website.

The Department’s ten full-time faculty are actively engaged in research in political geography, GIScience, geography and social justice, geomorphology, biogeography, historical geography, heritage tourism, and critical cartography. Recent publications include books and book chapters with the Routledge, Blackwell, Wiley-Blackwell, Temple University Press, and Ashgate Publishers. Journal articles by faculty appear in Urban Geography, Cultural Geography, the Geographical Review, Progress in Human Geography, Social and Cultural Geography, the Southeastern Geographer, and Iranian Studies.

Students and visitors are welcome to drop by the Department on the third floor of Monroe Hall to learn more about us, ask questions, and see our facilities.